Yo Unregistered: Join us for the April 1 meeting when it will be Recovery night. We will have demonstrations working with winching, recovery and spotting. We will meet at 7:30 p.m. at Jefferson County Fairgrounds (not Stevinson Toyota but nearby).

A few things have been starting to bother me at work. As the shop is set up, we use a team system. Including a "team leader" then the techs, usually placed in order of experience etc... The team leader usually is a master certified tech, with a few years experience. He is the one who dispatch's the work to the techs, according to experience level etc... The team leader makes sure every tech has a decent amount of flagged hours for the pay period. Well, this is the way I always thought it worked. But, most of the leaders get a little greedy and take some of the Gravy(i.e; major service's etc) for them selves. Three days ago our team leader flagged 17.10 hours for the day. While the other tech on the team only got three hours and stood around most of the day due to team leader taking the work. I was a little lucky as I finished a job and next up was a service, so that put me at 4.5 hours for the day.
Team leader has done this before(was even worse about it to) got yelled at by manager, but nothings changed. They see $$ coming from the bay. Well, yesterday really set me off. A waiter RX300 came in for a "clunking noise" while driving over bumps. I was up so I took it. Drove the vehicle, could not duplicate concern. Was going to go up to Service Rider to see if customer would like to ride with Tech to duplicate. He tells me Team leader already sold Strut tops for 2 1/2 hours and said I could do it if I wanted. I got mad as I couldn't here any noise so why are we selling work to the customer when we cant duplicate it?? Team Leader asked me if I heard it and I told him no. He said to go ahead and do the strut tops. I told him I wasn't going to do anything since I didn't here anything. He drove said he heard the noise and put the strut tops on. I really don't know if he heard the noise or not.... I just cant understand why management is letting this happen.... Then to top it off, today was pay day. 57 hours doesn't go far . Never been so irritated. Was going to talk with the manager but decided to wait till tuesday so I can cool down, wouldn't want to say anything that would get me in trouble. Sorry, just had to rant a little......

That blows Perry, sorry man. I've never had great experiences getting dealer service, most of us have sworn that off for good. Bummer to hear it sucks on the other end too. You could always move to Conifer an apply at CTS? just a thought.. .

Justin tells me Burt is going to the same system. Of course, in the long run this takes care of itself, as the non-lead techs will quit, or starve, then ... the only one left will be a burned out lead. In the short run though, if they do not build in financial incentives, I gotta tell ya that lead techs are unlikely to grow a management vision lobe if management hasn't.

Seems these managers go to the same management seminar. Given that the only link is Toyota/Lexus... seems like it might be coming from the top. And I only thought that kind of madness happened in the software industry. Makes me wonder just what the service writers/ 'assistant service managers' are doing for a living. Seems like THEY would be the logical ones to assign the work, especially since they do not have a conflict of interest like the lead techs. But it is also probably a management response to the fact that most service writers are non-technical and have little interest in growing a technical lobe.

The real solution is hiring technically oriented service writers who also know how to sell to customers and handle the customer interface ethically and courteously.

From a business systems analyst perspective, this is a system that has the seeds of its own demise. It is unsustainable. This will die, but probably a slow death, as automotive management tends to be 10-15 years behind the times when it comes to business systems analysis.

I keep thinking I'd like to be a service writer in my next life, but this gives me pause. Maybe I should be a consultant....... HA!

At this dealership, there is a manager assigning jobs to the techs. I think almost all of the techs have the same skill level with the exception of the LOF tech (always a green bean) There are always grumblings about who is gettin' hours, but since a manager is in charge of the assignments, there is less bias. Probably a good thing. It is the manager's job to keep the team together and working well. Move the responsibility of assigning tasks from a tech to a manager. Management has to balance wait times with staffing levels.

Sucks, but don't worry, Drew Carry says it best, "There's a support group for that. It is called EVERYONE. They meet at the bar."

I think in having this kind of system, they do need someone to hand out the work to the techs. People just get greedy. Some teamleaders are better than others about the position. Some will help the techs that work under them a lot and others not at all. The part that gets me mad is they have already talked with the team leader about this, and yet nothing changed. They did not follow through. I'm not going to let it happen again.